She doesn't get to 3. What's the point? Liam will come when he's ready thankyou very much. Liam wants to buy the soft-toy lion. Why can't he have it? Why does he have to leave the toy-shop now? He hears his Mum entreating him to obey her. Hahah, it's a fantastic game. He's loving it, he knows his mother can't make him do anything.

At three years old, young Liam is the ideal autonomous child. He is so happy and well-brought up. At the age of four months, he was entrusted into the caring hands of the local day-care institution. Receiving quality education and instruction from 8am til 6pm 5 days a week, Liam could never fully realise just how fortunate he was.------------------

I stood in the toyshop and observed. The desperation in the mother's voice was pitiful. She had gone to the trouble of bringing her son into the shop, he had had a good look around, and now it was time to go. Her voice was shrill as she remonstrated with her son. There were no warnings of consequences, no mentions of his privileges being removed. Only repeated pleas that he would follow his mum out of the shop.

It's sad, how many mums you hear - I'm going to count to three. - they never make it to three, because if they do, they don't know what they'll do. So they count 1, 2 very slowly and then ask the child again. The number of times this mother said "right, that's enough!" was ridiculous. Four or five times at least. Little Liam just ignored mummy. What the heck, what had she ever done for him?

When Liam finally decided to leave the shop, his mother praised him. I spoke to a man standing next to me. There's some badly behaved kids around aren't there . He told me that it was just human nature, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Well you know what sort of adults they make don't you. The other man didn't respond.

What can Mum and Dad do? If they haven't got anything with which to back up their instructions, what is going to happen? In New Zealand now, by removing their child to time-out or by giving their child a smack, no matter how light, parents are breaking the law and officially branded as child-abusers. Mum and Dad want to raise a well-adjusted, well-behaved son who will grow up to be a successful and considerate citizen. But the Government is systematically stripping away the parents right and ability to do this.------------------

The world is so blimmin politically correct.

We wouldn't dream of smacking the dear wee angel would we?

And in other news: "Police to politically correct to stop gay child abuse". English "couple", Ian Wathey, 40, and Craig Faunch, 32 have been allowed to foster 18 children despite allegations that they had abused the first two children. Eighteen? What a sad way for these children to be brought up. In what could only be a dysfunctional "family" where there's two dad's and no mum.

Kidscape director Michele Elliott said: "People have let political correctness get in the way of good practice and common sense and and children have been abused."

The beurocrats and socialists are so concerned about rights, homosexuality and child autonomy that they are exposing the kiddies to even more abuse.